Snowpack, reservoir levels down for this time of year

Share this:

Department of Water Resources Water Resource Engineer John King checks the weight of the snow sample on a scale held by DWR State Climatologist Michael Anderson, left, during the first snow survey of the season Thursday at Phillips Station near Echo Summit, El Dorado County. California water managers said Thursday the Sierra Nevada snowpack is only 67 percent of normal in this winter’s first manual measurement. Winter snow in the Sierra provides drinking water for much of California as it melts in the spring and summer and flows into reservoirs for storage. (Rich Pedroncelli — Associated Press)

Department of Water Resources Water Resource Engineer John King, right, places the snow survey tube to on a scale held by DWR State Climatologist Michael Anderson, left, during the first snow survey of the season Thursday at Phillips Station near Echo Summit, El Dorado County. (Rich Pedroncelli — Associated Press)

John King, Water Resource Engineer of the California Department of Water Resources, Snow Survey Section, addresses the media during the first snow survey of the 2019 snow season Thursday at Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada. The survey site is approximately 90 miles east of Sacramento off Highway 50 in El Dorado County. (Ken James — California Department of Water Resources)

The critical snowpack in the California mountains is two-thirds of what it normally is this time of year, and north state reservoir levels are down as well.

The Department of Water Resources Thursday conducted its first manual snow survey of the year to call attention to the situation. DWR does the manual survey five times each year. It involves officials walking out into a meadow near Echo Summit in El Dorado County and pushing a pipe down into the snow to determine its depth. The pipe is then weighed to calculate the water content of the snow.

The snowpack is important because on average it provides 30 percent of California’s water as it melts in the spring and is captured in reservoirs.

Thursday’s media event really didn’t break any news. A network of 260 sensors in the mountains have been tracking below-average snow level all season.

In the northern mountains that fill Lake Oroville and Shasta and Trinity lakes, conditions are the worst, with just 62 percent of the normal amount of snow. It has the equivalent of 6.9 inches of water.

Statewide, the average snowpack is 67 percent of normal, amounting to the equivalent of 7.1 inches of water.

The snow figures are more than double what they were this time last year, but last year all but one of the state’s major reservoirs had far more water stored now than is normal. The one exception was Lake Oroville. It had been drawn down to avoid having to use the main spillway, which was then halfway through the two-year rebuilding process necessitated when it broke up in February 2017.

This year Lake Oroville is even lower, just 29 percent of capacity, which is 47 percent of what’s normal this time of year. On Jan. 3, 2018, it was 35 percent full.

And Shasta Lake is down too, 80 percent of what is normal compared to 113 percent of normal this time last year. Same at Trinity Lake; 89 percent of normal compared to 106 percent in January 2018.

Elsewhere in the state, reservoirs are about at their average for this time of year.

More than 92 percent of California is considered abnormally dry, or in moderate, severe or extreme drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a project of several federal agencies and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. That’s up from 56 percent a year ago.

A storm is expected this weekend which may improve the snowpack. A foot or two of snow is expected along most of the Sierra Nevada and the Cascades.

“We still have three wet-season months ahead of us,” said DWR State Climatologist Michael Anderson in a press release, “so there’s time for the snowpack to build and improve before it begins to melt, which usually starts happening around April 1.”